The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
drought; it was never burned at other times for fear of causing a deluge
of rain. Also when the river was low, the sorcerer would place human hair
in the stream to increase the supply of water.(708)
To preserve the cut hair and nails from injury and from the dangerous uses
to which they may be put by sorcerers, it is necessary to deposit them in
some safe place. Hence the natives of the Maldives carefully keep the
cuttings of their hair and nails and bury them, with a little water, in
the cemeteries; “for they would not for the world tread upon them nor cast
them in the fire, for they say that they are part of their body and demand
burial as it does; and, indeed, they fold them neatly in cotton; and most
of them like to be shaved at the gates of temples and mosques.”(709) In
New Zealand the severed hair was deposited on some sacred spot of ground
“to protect it from being touched accidentally or designedly by any
one.”(710) The shorn locks of a chief were gathered with much care and
placed in an adjoining cemetery.(711) The Tahitians buried the cuttings of
their hair at the temples.(712) The cut hair and nails of the Flamen
Dialis were buried under a lucky tree.(713) The hair of the Vestal virgins
was hung upon an ancient lotus-tree.(714) In Germany the clippings of hair
used often to be buried under an elder-bush.(715) In Oldenburg cut hair
and nails are wrapt in a cloth which is deposited in a hole in an
elder-tree three days before the new moon; the hole is then plugged
up.(716) In the West of Northumberland it is thought that if the first
parings of a child’s nails are buried under an ash-tree, the child will
turn out a fine singer.(717) In Amboina before a child may taste sago-pap
for the first time, the father cuts off a lock of the child’s hair which
he buries under a sago palm.(718) In the Aru Islands, when a child is able
to run alone, a female relation cuts off a lock of its hair and deposits
it on a banana-tree.(719) In the island of Roti it is thought that the
first hair which a child gets is not his own and that, if it is not cut
off, it will make him weak and ill. Hence, when the child is about a month
old, his hair is cut off with much ceremony. As each of the friends who
are invited to the ceremony enters the house he goes up to the child, cuts
off a little of its hair and drops it into a cocoa-nut shell full of
water. Afterwards the father or another relation takes the hair and packs
it into a little bag made of leaves, which he fastens to the top of a
palm-tree. Then he gives the leaves of the palm a good shaking, climbs
down, and goes home without speaking to any one.(720) Indians of the Yukon
territory, Alaska, do not throw away their cut hair and nails, but tie
them up in little bundles and place them in the crotches of trees or
anywhere where they will not be disturbed by animals. For “they have a
superstition that disease will follow the disturbance of such remains by
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